


What's Happening to Castle Bleck?

by SpaceDimentio



Category: Super Paper Mario (Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-20
Updated: 2018-01-26
Packaged: 2019-03-07 02:19:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13424652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpaceDimentio/pseuds/SpaceDimentio
Summary: Strange and hilarious things are happening to the citizens of Castle Bleck. Can they figure out the source of the mishaps? (Written in 2013)





	1. Chapter 1

The purples and blacks of the dimensional hole swirled lazily around Castle Bleck. Inside, the residents were just beginning to wake, most of them groaning and pulling the covers over their heads.   
  
Always punctual, the blue-skinned, pink-haired, glasses-wearing secretary had already been up for about an hour or so. Being the first one up most days, Nastasia was in charge of making breakfast. Today, it was pancakes and plenty of fresh fruit.   
  
Dimentio floated into the kitchen and took a seat at the round dining table. He shifted his chair loudly, hoping to startle Nastasia. Used to such pranks, she didn’t jump but instead curtly said, “Good morning.”   
  
The magician rested his head on his hands and muttered a disappointed “good morning” back. He lifted his nose and took a deep breath, then turned to face Nastasia. “Are those pancakes I smell?” he inquired charmingly.   
  
Nastasia nodded, causing a pleased grin to cross Dimentio’s face.   
  
“How delightful,” he said. “As delicious and fluffy as a cloud crisped golden in the sun.”   
  
Nastasia turned from the stove and threateningly lowered her eyes over her glasses at him. “Don’t you steal everybody else’s pancakes again, or you’re in for a lot of trouble, k?”   
  
“Me? I would never,” the magician replied with feigned innocence. The secretary hmph’d and went back to flipping pancakes.  
  
Mimi and O’Chunks arrived, followed by Mr. L, who was stumbling around sleepily, only half awake. They sat down at their usual spots, taking in the delicious smell wafting through the air.   
  
“’Eh Nassy, what ye cookin’? O’Chunks asked with a wide grin.   
  
Beside him, Mimi cheerfully squealed, “It smells really yummy!”   
  
In answer, Nastasia set down a huge plate of pancakes and a big pitcher of maple syrup in the middle of the table. She came back with a large bowl of cut up peaches, pears, bananas, strawberries, and blueberries. She professionally set out six clean plates for the six residents of Castle Bleck.   
  
Nastasia saw their confusion at the lack of forks, spoons, or knives and said, “You’ll have to find your own silverware. It’s disappeared from the drawer and I keep finding them in the oddest places.”  
  
Nastasia, having already found her utensils, sat down and began to eat. Everybody else grumbled and got up to search.   
  
Eventually, everyone had found their silverware in such places as the windowsills, inside the oven, on the top shelf of the refrigerator, underneath the toaster, inside a pot, and behind the coffeemaker.   
  
Everyone except Mr. L that is, who had been a little too sleepy to search properly. “Aww man, now what am I going to eat with?” he complained as he sat back down. He brightened a bit, spotting a knife poking out of the flowers adorning the table.   
  
He froze, however, when he noticed that the flowers were staring at him. Each flower had a large, angry-looking eye in the center of its petals.   
  
“Ha-Have the flowers always been like that?” Mr. L asked, unnerved.   
  
“Like what?” replied Nastasia, glancing over her newspaper.   
  
“Ewewewewew! Gross! Somebody get rid of it now!” screamed Mimi.   
  
Without missing a beat, O’Chunks lifted one giant fist and slammed it down, crushing the creepy flowers, vase and all. Everybody but Dimentio, who was too enthralled in his pancakes, jerked in surprise.   
  
“Lot o’ strange things this mornin,’” the Scotsman said as L carefully picked the somewhat bent knife out of the wreckage.   
  
“I know, right? I found the cereal and crackers in the fridge,” Mimi responded.   
  
“And the milk and lunch meat were in the cupboard,” added Mr. L, who was now carefully cutting his pancakes into small pieces and then eating them with his fingers.   
  
The morning continued in companionable silence, until, quite suddenly, in the middle of his third helping, Dimentio’s pancakes burst into flame. “Noooooo! My pancakes!” the jester cried out in anguish.   
  
Everyone else hovered over their food protectively, startled and confused at the spontaneous combustion. The shocked magician sat in awed silence, watching the table begin to burn around his melting plate.   
  
Nastasia calmly stood up, filled up a pitcher at the sink, and dumped it all over both the table and Dimentio himself. The fire was extinguished, but it wasn’t water that had smothered the flames.   
  
Dimentio quietly lifted a finger, dipped it in the mystery liquid, and tasted it. “Orange juice?” he questioned.  
  
Mr. L barked out a laugh and O’Chunks got up and took his cup over to the sink. He flipped it on and orange juice did indeed pour from the faucet. “Huh. I was wondrin’ where dat wen’ to,” the muscleman said after taking a big swig.   
  
Dimentio slowly stood up, barely concealing his anger over his ruined breakfast and sticky clothing. “I’m going to go take a shower,” he mumbled quietly and tonelessly. He teleported away, leaving a puddle of juice on the floor.   
  
“Well, um, I guess the dishes aren’t getting cleaned today,” Nastasia said. “L, you are to fix this as soon as possible.”   
  
“What?! I’m a mechanic, not a plumber,” the Green Thunder replied, a little outraged over the sudden additional work.   
  
“Just do it, k?” she responded, a hand on her glasses.   
  
“Okay, okay,” Mr. L grumbled.   
  
With that, everyone went to go complete their assigned chores and to do their daily training, the morning’s oddities temporarily forgotten.


	2. Chapter 2

The sounds of a cartoon carried out into the hallway as Mimi entered the TV room. She made her way over to the couch where O’Chunks and Mr. L were seated. “Ello, lass,” O’Chunks greeted.   
  
She turned to him and then, noticing that his beard was glistening in the light of the TV screen, reached out to touch it.   
  
“Mimi?” O’Chunks said, leaning backwards away from her hand. “Water ye doin’?”   
  
“Why is your beard full of glitter?” the green shape-shifter asked.   
  
“Oh dat? I dunno. Jes done sparkled all o’ ah sudden,” the muscleman shrugged.   
  
“Huh,” replied Mimi, sitting down in between the two men. “I think it’s pretty,” she continued, causing O’Chunks to blush a bit.   
  
Mimi watched the TV for a second, then, after seeing what was on, asked, “Mr. L, are you watching Spongebob?”   
  
“I-what?! No! That wasn’t-“ he stammered, fumbling for the remote control and changing the channel to The Legend of Korra. Mimi giggled and L just groaned and gave up trying to explain himself.   
  
After a moment of quietly watching Korra firebend the stuffing out of some bad guys, Mimi brought up the topic of the day’s breakfast oddities. “Do you guys remember all that weird stuff that happened earlier? Like the orange juice from the sink?” she asked.   
  
“Oh yeah,” responded Mr. L. “I still have no idea how juice got into the plumbing.”   
  
“Yeh, en Dimentio’s pancakes done caught on fire,” chuckled O’Chunks.   
  
“Haha! That was hilarious! That look on his face!” laughed Mr. L. All three started to laugh, forgetting their earlier fear of spontaneous combustion.   
  
Speaking of Dimentio, the jester himself floated in and asked, “What are we all laughing about?” They fell silent for a moment, then started laughing even harder.   
  
Instead of his usual purple and yellow motley, Dimentio’s clothes were now pink and red with little heart-shaped bells and lavender tights. Tears streaming from his eyes, Mr. L jokingly asked, “What’s up, yon jester of love?”   
  
“Is it Valentine’s day?” Mimi laughed.   
  
“Haha. Very funny,” Dimentio frowned, glaring at them. “When I find who did this to all of my clothing, they shall suffer the agony of a thousand deaths.”   
  
“Why din ye jes wear teh stickeh one?” asked O’Chunks after they had sobered up.   
  
“For your information, that outfit had changed as well after I got out of the shower. It was somehow still sticky too,” replied Dimentio, seating himself in his regular chair beside the couch.  
  
They giggled to themselves for another moment while Dimentio sourly watched TV, before Mr. L commented. “Another strange thing happened today,” he said. “When I looked out the window earlier, I saw the usual void.”   
  
“And?” Dimentio said with an eyebrow raised.   
  
“Out the window further down the hallway, I saw grass and trees and stuff. There’s no nature in Dimension Bleck!”   
  
“Huh,” noted Mimi. “It’s like when I went outside earlier and parts of the walls were all sorts of different colors.”   
  
“Oh that reminds me,” continued Dimentio. “Your entire room has turned from pink to gray.”   
  
“And what were you doing in there, might I ask?” huffed Mimi.   
  
“Why, reading your diary of course,” replied Dimentio with a smirk.   
  
“Dimentio, you big dummy head! I told you to stay away from my stuff!” Mimi shouted in rage.   
  
“And since when do I listen to rules?” said a very smug jester.   
  
“You’ll pay for that later, jerk face. Right now I’ve gotta go find some paint. Grey is so icky,” Mimi said, wandering off to go survey the damage.   
  
“Good,” sighed O’Chunks. “Now we ken watch teh tele withou’ listenin’ teh you two bicker like wee siblings.” Dimentio snorted, unamused, and Mr. L smirked.   
  
Unbeknownst to him, the TV remote was slowly rising from his hand into the air. When all three men noticed it levitating there, it aimed itself at the TV and flew into the middle of the screen at a high velocity, completely cracking the screen and causing the whole thing to short out.   
  
“What in the worlds?” Mr. L asked, bearing an expression of complete bafflement.  
  
O’Chunks stood up, fists clenched in anger. “Great. Thanks o’ lot, L,” he said.   
  
“I didn’t do anything!” Mr. L balked. “Dimentio, you did that to get back at me, didn’t you!”   
  
A likewise bewildered Dimentio raised his hands defensively and said, “Why would I destroy one of the best sources of entertainment in this curséd place?”   
  
O’Chunks stomped and growled, “I don care how it happened, somebody’s gonna fix it!” He then stormed off to angrily file a report and a request for a new television set.   
  
Before more accusations could be cast, Nastasia peeked her head around the doorframe at the other side of the room. Seeing the remote control sticking out of the TV like some sort of stray and lonely javelin, Nastasia turned to the two men cowering in their seats, her eyebrows already settling into a position of fury.   
  
Dimentio immediately pointed at Mr. L, and her anger was quickly set upon him. “Um, Mr. L, care to explain why the TV remote is currently residing in the middle of the screen?” she asked, barely containing her rage.   
  
“I didn’t do that!” L said, pressing himself as far into the couch as he could go in an attempt to escape her furious glare. “It did that by itself!”   
  
“Sure it did,” Nastasia responded, not at all amused. “And were you the last one to have it?”   
  
“Well, yes. But-“   
  
She cut him off. “Then this is coming out of your paycheck. You’re responsible for disposing of it and finding a suitable replacement.”  
  
With the punishment doled out, Nastasia walked away, a scowl still on her face and her patience gone. She noticed Dimentio, who was bearing a suspicious and nervous looking smile, and opened her mouth to say something. Changing her mind after seeing what he was wearing, she instead said, “You know what? I’m not gonna ask.” Then she vanished out the door.   
  
“But but but…” Mr. L trailed off.   
  
Dimentio laid a hand on his shoulder and said, “It just isn’t your day, is it L.”   
  
“I hate you,” Mr. L sobbed into his hands. Dimentio chuckled and left L to grieve his misfortune.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nastasia is a scary, scary person. Dimentio is now St. Valentine.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Out of all of them, Dimentio's having the most fun.

It was now dinner time at Castle Bleck. O’Chunks and Dimentio were already seated at the table, patiently waiting while Nastasia cooked. All of the misplaced items had been returned to their proper places earlier, although someone still occasionally found a piece of silverware hidden away.   
  
Everyone turned their heads to look at the doorway as the sound of screaming came down the hallway. Much to their shock, Mario burst into the room. They scrambled into battle stances while Mario babbled about something and flailed his arms around in a panic.   
  
Dimentio took note of the unusual behavior and relaxed. “Calm down, would you?” he said, annoyed.   
  
Mario stopped, blue eyes wide, and shouted, “I’m stuck!” The voice was not that of an Italian plumber, but of a certain scared shapeshifter.  
  
“Mimi?” O’Chunks asked tentatively. “What happen’ teh yeh?”   
  
“I’m stuck!” she shouted again, then promptly broke down into hysterics. Dimentio laughed raucously at her misfortune.   
  
Nastasia shot him a look and looped an arm around Mimi’s shoulders, obviously feeling a little awkward to be comforting ‘Mario.’ “Calm down, k?” she murmured. “Just tell us how this happened.”   
  
Mimi sniffed and stuttered out,” W-Well I was pr-practicing my shapeshifting, j-just in case I needed t-to f-fool the heroes, and then all of a s-sudden I couldn’t turn back!” She started wailing at the top of her lungs.   
  
“Mimi! Mimi! It’ll be ok!” Nastasia said. “Just go sit down and we’ll figure something out after dinner, k?”   
  
“O-Ok,” Mimi replied, taking a deep breath and shakily sitting down. She glared at Dimentio, who was holding his sides and wiping tears away, still chuckling a bit.  
  
Just as things were calming down again, there was another disturbance at the doorway. There was a flowerpot slightly to the right of the door. It used to be navy blue, but was now flashing all the colors of the rainbow cascading downwards like a bright and colorful waterfall.   
  
As it was, the door opened by itself and something or someone bumped into it, causing it to fall over and break. That someone remained invisible while the shards of the pot individually turned a motley of different colors.   
  
Nastasia sighed at yet another broken thing while Mimi tentatively got up and moved to the door. She paused and blinked in confusion when she spotted a well-groomed mustache floating by itself in the air.   
  
She reached out and poked an area well below it a few times, discovering that something was indeed there and eliciting a response from it. “Ouch! Knock it off!” a snarky voice said, belonging to a certain mechanic.   
  
“Mr. L?” Mimi asked.   
  
“Yeah, who else?” L said, then paused. “Mimi? Is that you? Why are you Mr. Jumpsallovereverything?”   
  
Mimi huffed, her previous worries returning. “I’m stuck. Oh no, I’m stuck! Oh golly! I’m gonna be stuck forever! I don’t wanna be some hairy old guy for the rest of my life!”   
  
Mr. L felt offended by that for some reason, but laid a hand on her shoulder, trying to get her to stop crying. “Well, you do a pretty good impression. I froze up thinking we were being attacked already.” The self-blow to his pride didn’t do much to calm her, so he just steered her to the table and sat her down in her chair.  
  
“Eh, L?” O’Chunks asked, unnerved by watching L’s chair move by itself as he sat down.   
  
“Yeeeess?” Mr. L replied.   
  
“Why kent we see yeh?”   
  
“What do you  mean?” Mr. L queried, then looked down at himself and gasped. “Holy smokes! I’m invisible!” he exclaimed.   
  
“Well, not entirely. We can still see your mustache,” Mimi added with a bit of a giggle.   
  
“Yes,” Dimentio said, giving said ‘stache a twiddle. “Yet another hilarious conundrum, as hairy as your lip.”   
  
The mustache turned towards him and somehow gave off the sense that it wanted to slap him.   
  
“Anyways,” L said, making an effort to ignore the annoying jester. “When can we eat? You’re usually done by now Nastasia.”   
  
“Yeah Nassy,” Mimi chirped. “You seem off today. Golly, is something wrong?”   
  
Nastasia heaved a deep, worried sigh and turned to face them all. “Um, well, there’s just so much going on today. Strange things have happened to  everyone except me, and, um, things keep breaking.” She glanced pointedly at L. “I haven’t seen Count Bleck all day, either. I’m, um, really worried about him,” she sighed.   
  
“Come teh think o’ it,” continued O’Chunks. “I ain’t see ‘em eider. Hev any o’ you?”   
  
“Nope,” said Mimi.   
  
“Nu-uh,” said Mr. L.   
  
Dimentio shook his head. “Not even a glimpse.”  
  
Nastasia slumped into her seat, looking very worried indeed. “I dropped off some lunch in front of his door, but I don’t think he ate it. I, um, didn’t want to bother him while he was working, but maybe I should have taken it inside.”   
  
“Don’t worry, Nassy,” Mimi comforted. “We’ll check up on him after dinner if he doesn’t come down to eat.”  
  
Suddenly, and with a loud pop, Mimi returned to her natural form. Simultaneously, the salt shaker on the table turned into a rather ugly garden gnome and O’Chunks gained a black tuxedo, a fancy bowtie, and an entirely different accent. “My, my. Looks like you problem is gone, my dear Mimi.”   
  
Mimi blushed and Dimentio took the opportunity to add in an insult. “At last, we might understand you without that barbaric accent of yours.”   
  
O’Chunks politely ignored the comment and raised up his cup to drink, his gigantic pinkie finger extended outwards, the glitter in his beard sparkling magnificently. Everyone stared at him for a moment longer, then consciously looked anywhere else.   
  
Nastasia passed out the food, setting a place for Count Bleck, and looked very weary, and tired, and just plain wishing that the day’s randomness was over.  
  
They ate in silence, trying to puzzle out the strange things to affect them and the castle. All of them perked up and looked towards the door when they heard the creak of it closing. Count Bleck was standing in the doorway, looking shabby and worse for wear. His glowing red eyes were dull, his monocle was askew, and he had a slight blush from fever.   
  
He first noticed the garden gnome, then Dimentio’s girly outfit, then Mr. L’s floating mustache. “Oh, my…” he said quietly, and sniffed loudly.   
  
“Count Bleck!” Nastasia said, standing up. “You look terrible!”   
  
“Yes, Count Bleck knows,” he said as he shakily floated over and sat down in front of the dinner Nastasia had laid out for him. “Count Bleck is afraid he has contracted a magical cold.”  
  
“Magical… cold?” Mr. L asked.   
  
“Yes. It means –“ Before Count Bleck could continue his explanation, he started to huff and puff, and then let out a great big sneeze. Nastasia’s bubblegum pink hair burst out of its bun and started to writhe around like so many snakes. She screamed and started to run around the room, desperately trying to hold it down.   
  
O’Chunks caught her and directed her back to her chair, comfortingly murmuring, “There, there, Nassy. It won’t hurt you.”   
  
“As you can see,” Count Bleck said. “Magical colds cause things such as that to happen. Count Bleck has basically lost control over his magical powers.”  
  
He lifted his top hat, revealing long rabbit ears going a full foot up into the air and curling over cutely. Mr. L, Dimentio, and Mimi tried not to giggle as he replaced the hat back on his head. Then he opened his cloak with a half-hearted flourish, revealing orange, pink, and sky blue polka dots in place of the usual mystical stars.   
  
Mimi smothered her giggles with her hand, L snorted and took advantage of his invisibility to grin widely, and Dimentio outright laughed. Count Bleck shot him a glare before starting to pick at his food, trying to ignore Nastasia’s hypnotically wiggling hair.   
  
“Well that explains some things,” commented Mr. L.   
  
“Is the magic permanent, my wonderful count?” O’Chunks questioned, taking up the garden gnome and shaking some salt out of it.   
  
“No. All the side effects will go away once Count Bleck recovers,” Count Bleck responded with a dull blink.   
  
“Good,” Mimi said. “I don’t want to get stuck again.”  
  
Count Bleck then went on to explain how he’d gotten sick over night and had been bed-ridden all day, too ill to eat. Even now he was only eating a little.   
  
Everyone else was done eating by this time, and were standing around idly. Nastasia was off by the door cleaning up the shards of the rainbow flowerpot. Mimi filled up a glass of orange juice from the sink and gave it to Count Bleck. O’Chunks was contemplating the stack of dirty dishes piled on the countertop, while Dimentio was whispering something to Mr. L’s mustache, a mischievous grin lighting up his mismatched eyes.   
  
Count Bleck stood up, his food half uneaten, and brought his plate to the stack, wondering why the dishes hadn’t been cleaned. He turned and headed for the door, pausing when his nose started to wrinkle. He sneezed powerfully and everyone froze, waiting for something to happen.   
  
Dimentio stepped away from Mr. L as the air shimmered around the Green Thunder. Mr. L rapidly became visible again, only he was naked! “Gah!” he exclaimed, then quickly covered himself with his still invisible clothes, which had been piled at his feet.   
  
Count Bleck hastily covered Mimi’s eyes with his hands before she could turn and see. “What?” she asked. “What happened?”   
  
“You don’t need to know,” Count Bleck told her while Dimentio rolled around on the floor, convulsing with laughter.   
  
“Why in the worlds would you take your clothes off?!” Nastasia screamed at him.   
  
“I-I thought maybe only my clothes were invisible,” Mr. L responded, blushing fiercely. “Dimentio said-“   
  
“L, you should know better than to listen to Dimentio,” Count Bleck interjected.   
  
“Yes,” O’Chunks said, his fingers laced together behind his back. “You know how tricky our silly jester is.”   
  
Dimentio was lying on the floor in the fetal position, holding his stomach tightly and trying to stop laughing, tears running down from his eyes. “ I didn’t…think…he’d be stupid… enough to do it!” Dimentio breathed out.   
  
Nastasia gave Mr. L a thwap to the back of the head, eliciting more laughter from the wheezing magician. “Now,” she said, recovering from the shock. “Go get dressed and report to me immediately in the morning for your punishment, k?”   
  
“Oh man…” Mr. L sighed, then glared at Dimentio, his blue eyes narrowed. “I’ll get you for this.”   
  
Dimentio paused and looked at him for a moment, then resumed laughing even harder as Mr. L awkwardly shuffled out the door.   
  
Count Bleck removed his hands from Mimi’s face, who looked around confusedly. He looked at O’Chunks, who just shrugged, before sneezing again. They heard a crash, followed by Mr. L’s shout. Nastasia sighed in exasperation, her hair writhing faster in fury. Count Bleck shook his head slowly before wearily returning back to bed.


End file.
